Scout Attacked by a Tiger (Eclaireur attaque par un tigre)
1904
Oil on canvas
47 3/8 x 63 3/4 in. (120.5 x 162 cm)
The Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pennsylvania

Rousseau loved to saunter through the parks of Paris.  The park at Saint-Clud, which was also painted by Kandinsky in 1906/7, was one of his favorite subjects.  While the botanical gardens inspired the mysterious jungle pictures, Rousseau is fascinated in this picture by the strict rhythmic arrangement and perspective tapering of the avenue.  He perceives much as realistic but the leaves, distributed like a pattern, look naive.  However, his art is by no means naive.  Rousseau's painting filters out the basic relationships. In addition, Rousseau knew the history of art.  It is likely, therefore, that Hobbema's famous "Avenue of Middelharnis" was at the back of his mind when he painted this picture.

Rousseau is one of the most difficult of all painters to explain, as has already been made apparent in the text.  Although all his life he remained a genuinely simple, naive, and -- to judge by some of his statements and actions -- even an obtuse man, few painters demand more subtlety and sophistication from the observer.
A large group of his paintings show jungle scenes full of fantastic foliage, exotic figures, savage animals, strange birds. These are his most popular works, since the decorative foliage and the interest of the subject matter are readily acceptable to almost anybody.  A simpler subject, Landscape with Cattle, was chosen for illustration in this portfolio because it is more difficult for most people to appreciate, because its small size permits reproduction without too much reduction, and because Rousseau's quality is sometimes revealed best by continued acquaintance with a picture, all explanations aside.
Rousseau's friends were the little people of the quarter where he lived; he remained one of them all his life, though in his later years he also knew the painters of the avant-garde (including Picasso) whose art was, in its intellectualism, the opposite of his own.  "Instinctive" is a word not in much favor and too easy a one to fall back on when the character of a man's art is difficult to describe, yet one must fall back on it in Rousseau's case.  He was an instinctive painter if ever there was one.  Part of his appeal is that this makes him refreshing in an age when painting carries a burden of theory that sometimes stifles it.